The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-10-30
PATAGONIA.
Once on the Maps = What Has
Become off

There used to be place called Pata-
gonia. 1t appears on our biographies
now as "a drear and uninhabitable
waste, upon which herds of wild horses
and cattle Craze, that are hunted for
their flesh by few bands of savage In
dians of immense stature.n am quot
ing from school-book published in
1886, and In common use in this coun-
try. The same geography gives similar
Information about 1.-The Argentine Con-
federation" It makes the Argentines
roar with rage to call their country
The Argentine Confederation. It
would DO just as polite and proper to
call this the Confederate States of
America. A bitter, bloody war was
fought 10 wipe that name off the map,
but our publishers still insist upon
keeping it there. 1t is not confedera-
ton; it is nation, with big IN, !" like
ours-one and inseparable, united we
stand, divided we fall, and all that sort
of thing-the Argentine Republic. To
call it anything else is an insult to the
patriots who fought to make it SO, and
reflection upon our own intelligence.
Several years ago Patagonia was
divided between Chill and the Argentine
Republic, the ministers from the United
States to those two countries doing the
carving. The SUBMITS of the Cordilleras
we're fixed as the boundary lines. Chilli
strip along the Pacific Coast between
the mountains and the sea, and the
Argentine Republic the pampas, the
archipelago of Terra del Fuego being
divided between them. Since the parti-
ton ranchmen have been pushing
southwark with great rapidity, and now
the vast territory is ideally oc-
cupied. There are 40 m, ID cattle
or horses there than in Kane and the
dreary, uninhabited wastes Pata-
gonia have gone into oblivion \, it'll the
Great American Desert" The
remnant of a vast tribe of aborigines
still occupies the interior, but the In
dian problem of the Argentine Republic
was solved in summary way. There
was considerable annoyance on the
frontier from bands of rowing savages,
who used to come north in the winter
time. steal cattle, rob, and ravish, and
the outposts of civilization were not safe.
General Roca, the Sheridan of the
River Plate, was sent with brigade of
cavalry to the frontier to prevent this
sort of thing. East and west across the
territory runs the Rio Negro, swift, !
turbid stream like the Missouri, with |
high banks. Fifty miles or so from the |
mountains the river makes turn in its |
course. and leaves a narrow pathway |
through which everything that enters |
or leaves Patagonia by land must go. |
Across this pass of fifty miles General |
Roca dug ditch twelve feet deep and |
fifteen feet wide. The Indians, to the |
of several thousand, were north |
when the work was done, raiding the |
settlements. As spring came they
turned to go southwark as usual, in
long caravan. with their stolen horses |
and cattle. Roca galloped around their
rear, and drove them Ught and day be-
fore him. When they reached the ditch |
they became bewildered, tor they could |
not cross it, anu after a few days of |
slaughter the remnant that survived
and were distributed |
through the army as soldiers, while the |
women were sent into q semi-slavery |
among the ranchmen they had robbed.
The dead animals and men were buried |
together in the ditch, and there has |
been no further annoyance from In |
dians on the frontier.
The few that remain seldom come |
northWard, but remain around Punta |
Arenas, the only settlement in the
strait. hunting the ostrich and other
wild game. trading the skins for whisky,
and making themselves as wretched as
possible. The robes they wear are
made of the skins of the guansco, a
species of the llama, and the breasts of |
young ostrlches There is nothing |
prettler than an ostrich robe, but each |
one represents the slaughter of from !,
sixteen to twenty young birds. and |
they are getting rare and expensive as
the birds are being exterminated, as our |
buffaloes have William e. Curtis. |
in HaTper'S Magazine for November.